“Inclement weather aside, this is the time to meet. I need to speak to you, and the only place that was open on a day like this hasn’t been open for thirty years, but it’s quiet and we can chat. This pursuit grows tiresome. You and your….friends… harried me like a fox these past few months and for what? Because you think my children have been misbehaving? I assure you, Ring, I have never given birth, but I expect you’ll wish to meet regardless. It’s getting dark now, nearly time for dinner. Dress appropriately. And do be a dear and bring wine. I’m afraid I’ve finished mine and we have a great deal to discuss. The eye of the storm will come ashore soon. Stop by then.”
The connection cut, I told the girls “She’s at my uncle’s, in the center. Alone, I think. She asked me to bring wine, like a date. Let’s make it a foursome, shall we?” I asked, handing the package from Jim Broward to Wally. “We leave when the eye wall is here. That means time for sleep. And then, time for Elizabeth to sleep. Permanently.”
74
In the Wagoneer, I turned the heavy envelope up. A musical clank came from within and I tore the top away in one motion. Inside were two beautifully made British trench knives, fine examples a century old, being built for close fighting in World War I. I handed one each to the girls, who slipped their hands around them at once. They fit perfectly, filling their hands with deadly metal. A long blade finished in a wicked point, designed to be thrust forward or down. There was no time to sharpen them, but they would wreak havoc with contact and aggression. We would supply both of those needs.
“They’re inscribed”, Risa announced, after holding the blade up to the overhead light, “Trevor and William Bruton, of Warwick, England. Brothers. These knives have seen a lot of fighting, I bet. Especially since they were British. They never played defense.”
“What does that mean?” I asked, and backed up into the hammerfall of rain. The noise was deafening and the wind moved the heavy vehicle playfully as I edged down our street. I would have to go very slowly, picking my way through limbs and errant lawn furniture that dotted the road. Risa leaned forward to get closer. Wally turned halfway as the bullets of water drummed the metal roof and then in seconds, the rain began to slow. The clouds were parting, and quickly. It was unsettling after the howling of the past hours.
“The British had a simple doctrine in war. At Gallipoli, they attacked. At the Somme. Ypres, twice. In Palestine. They always went on the offensive. It was simple but it took incredible discipline.” When Risa spoke of history, it was as if she lived it.
Wally was testing the heft of her knife, listening and peering upward as the eye of the storm began to pass over, revealing an astounding column of clear, velvety night sky. She pointed to a single, bright star shining in defiance of the storm that curled around it, amazed. “So what does that mean to us when we meet Elizabeth?”
Risa didn’t hesitate. “Simple. As soon as possible, we attack.”
After a rocky ride over, my lights hit the Center and we parked close. I knew the storm would return soon and I respected the coming violence, both in and out of the building. Getting out, we were surrounded by unnatural calm. Where wind had been screaming minutes before I could now hear the drip of water. It was unsettling. I pulled on the door without any attempt at stealth and the glass swung wide, groaning slightly from years of disuse.
“She’s here.” My voice sounded thunderous in the uneasy quiet. The back of the shop was hidden by a shabby paneled wall. Behind was a long, open space with threadbare carpet and plain walls. I knew that only a card table and chairs lay beyond the flimsy barrier. A single fluorescent fixture popped and hummed, casting a flickering light from beyond the door. Both bulbs pulsed with shadows and glare in alternating moments. The rhythm was disquieting.
“Come in, Ring.” Elizabeth’s voice floated through the sanctuary of the shop. “Tell the blonde to leave her crucifix on the counter. I can only tolerate so much heresy at once” and she laughed to herself, amused by our silent discomfort. It was palpable. We stood, dripping slightly. Waiting.
“Before you cross the Rubicon and come through that door, why are you here? I haven’t had the chance to ask you. Is it pride? Vengeance? I won’t patronize you with talk of détente’. So please, come in. But done is done, and you cannot bring back the dead, no matter how intense your anger, and you will find me unwilling to go quietly to your particular kind of justice.” With that, she fell silent. We moved through the door, instantly fanning out. Wally was to my right, Risa on my left, slightly back, tense. We were all silent now, but the wind began to rise outside, wheezing and then slamming the outer door shut with a violence that shook the building.
“The storm will return soon. So loud.” Elizabeth sounded wistful. “Could you see any stars? I’ve always found that to be unnerving, with such violence close at hand.” I wasn’t sure if she was speaking of the storm or us.
Wally spoke, cautiously. “There was a bright one, by itself.” Elizabeth seemed pleased by that, for some arcane reason. “Well now you’ve seen two.” She curtsied, smirking.” An unusual occurrence, given the situation at hand.
With a moan and a bang, instantly, Jenny had returned.
There is a moment of balance before a fight begins, where I stand on the edge of motion, my body screaming for purpose, but my mind holds me fast. Blood roars in my head and the delicious chill of anticipation runs the length of my spine, like an angry whisper. We were standing, knives out. There, framed in the weak light, sat Elizabeth, leaning carelessly in a creaking plastic chair. An empty wine bottle, her high heeled shoes, and a single cup crowned the tabletop. She wore a simple dress of navy silk, her hair unbound over her shoulders. She was erotic and frightening in the same glance. She had been smoking, and the plumes curled lazily in the harsh interior light.
“A Jew and a Catholic who kneel together in church. And, in supplication to you, Ring, leaving you squarely in the fleshy, sinful middle” Elizabeth laughed, richly, “just as you want, although your cowardice will hold you from admitting the truth. Risa’s hungry mouth. Wally, looking back in lust, urging you to ride harder. Such dutiful sinners, beholden to each other as much as your own pleasure. I’m glad you brought your whores. Admitting you want them with you is the first honest thing you’ve ever done in your vapid life.” She rolled her head on her shoulders, slowly, like an athlete limbering for an event.
“No wine? I had hoped that manners would win out, Ring, but you’ve regressed to a rather brutish state. Killing women. Harrying me about the coast. How distasteful-“
And she was standing, cat quick, bottle in hand, broken on the exposed concrete wall behind in one seamless motion. She moved like angry water. I nodded imperceptibly to Risa. In moments, there would be no chance to talk, as the winds and rain began to rake the building again with mounting ferocity.
“Wally. Risa. Stay in your lanes, and just like the British, right?” They both hissed in agreement.
We attacked.
I feinted low and straightened, blade whistling at Elizabeth, who turned to the right and pulled the table in front of her with a crash. Her heel leapt out and crunched into Wally’s midsection as the wine bottle caromed off her ear, slicing deeply behind her jawline. Risa stepped over the table and calmly lunged forward with her knife hand only to have it turned by Elizabeth’s hand. There could be only one ending and Wally tried to make it happen with one vicious, loping sweep of her weapon. Elizabeth dodged, back, her shoulders thudding into the wall and then flicked the bottle out to cut my lead arm.
It was a wound I was willing to take to get closer. The wound burned, blood roping off into the air as I rolled my body sideways and closed the gap. The storm was in full fury now, adding to our curses and grunts as we closed on Elizabeth. Wally hesitated and was struck again, a long, shallow cut that glistened sickly down her side, her shirt parting to reveal her ribs. In a decisive flash, Elizabeth spun and pounded the bottle neck into Wally’s temple, who dropped instantly, groaning, as Risa rolled under me
and came up swinging, naked rage on her face. Risa’s trench knife slammed forward but was brought up short as Elizabeth’s elbow rushed down like an anvil. With a muffled thump, the bone connected with Risa’s forehead, her skull cracking against the floor. Risa was dizzied by the blow, but still conscious. It was the opening I needed.
I was in arm’s reach of Elizabeth, who began to wheel the bottle up in a slash that would have cut me from navel to neck, but I drifted right, and then spun under her angled attack to rise nearly chest to chest with her. I head butted her between the eyes and buried my knife in her ribs, the blade slipping between bone and sinew until it struck her shoulder blade and stopped. She bellowed, an unearthly, chorded shriek of tenor and bass voices all crying to the violation of my blade.
I held her, blood streaming from the lurid cut on her beautiful face, now frozen in a rictus of pain. She splashed wetly against me, her breath trickling out in a long, mournful whisper. Dropping her body to the floor with a thud, I turned to the girls. Risa waived me off as I kneeled before Wally, her hair a caked mass of blood. Her ear was nearly severed and her ribs showed through the longer wound. I found a pulse, weak but present. She would live.
“I’ll get the car. We need help now. We can say she was hurt in the storm.” Tearing open the front door, I stepped into the frigid rain and howling winds to back the Wagoneer closer. My hands were shaking from the adrenaline and it took me three tries to get the damned key in the ignition. I needed the hospital and a dry bed, far from the killing ground. After laying Wally in the back seat, Risa held her head, talking quietly to her as the rain pounding the metal roof drowned her words into mere sounds of comfort. It was enough. One look into the rearview mirror revealed Risa’s face, blanched in fear and sudden recognition.
“What? Is she okay?” I panicked, my hands fighting to hold the wheel steady. The wind pushed us like a toy from one lane to the other. We had six dangerous blocks to go.
“Elizabeth. Her body. It was still there!” Risa looked sick, and not just from the fight. It was true. Her corpse had lain there, rent. Bloody. Broken.
And very, very human.
75
It took too many minutes to get to the ambulance entrance to Hollywood Memorial, and the staff rushed out even as I rolled to a stop. A whirlwind ensued as Risa and Wally were bustled in through the doors with hectic efficiency. Nurses and doctors fired questions at me and the girls as the triage progressed. No one assumed any dark cause for the wounds; the hurricane raging around us assured that line of questioning would be overlooked. In a matter of seconds I became superfluous, to be left standing soaking wet, exhausted, and angry. The white floor was spattered with blood and rainwater, leaving the room in four lines where the gurneys rolled. I was alone in the waiting room. Three televisions overhead showed beautiful newscasters grimly urging residents to stay cowering inside, their practiced tones of concern repeating the same mantra, get down, get down, get down. A backdrop of weather radar outlined an enormous pinwheel of colorful violence spinning west over the city. It wobbled like a dizzy child, and slowly surged to the edge of the screen.
I sat on a frigid plastic chair and hung my head. A murderer, not an avenger. I had become Wrath and I felt the weight of sin’s fingers squeezing me tighter with each gusty sigh.
76
Light, blazing and painful hit my face from the window of the girls’ hospital room. My beard itched abominably, four days of growth that had seen neither water nor soap. I could smell my own breath, never a good sign. Risa lay supine on the left in her bed, Wally on the right. I had curled like a junkyard dog between them, threatening anyone who even looked in the room without my personal invitation. A rotation of visitors had spelled me for a few moments as I wandered to the cafeteria for a listless bite of food twice each day. Suma, Boon, Pan, even Glen had done a turn, accompanied by his nearly identical brother Gabriel who inexplicably sported a British accent. Angel had visited, too, a glowering hulk who watched every hospital employee with suspicion, only to be spelled often by Liz, who adopted a cracking tone of authority and ordered anyone in scrubs about without a moment to breathe.
Slowly, they healed. Risa was first to sit up, first to walk. Wally lay in and out of consciousness, her body working hard to throw of the grave slashes that were healing at a rate which puzzled the doctors. I did not invite questions, and after a day, they stopped asking. When Wally was smiling at me, a sweet, kind look on her face, I knew that I had not lost my family, my partners. I sat on the edge of Risa’s bed, one hand holding hers and the other laying on Wally’s leg. I could breathe again, and that meant I had an errand to run.
I kissed Risa lightly, then Wally, and told Boon “No one in or out. And then, the same when they are home. Spare no expense, no feelings, and no chances. I’ll be back in two days.”
Risa’s sadness was too great to address. I could not look at her directly, to do so would be to lose my nerve. It was hard enough finding the strength to leave them at all.
“Ring? Where are you going?” Wally asked, sleepily, although she knew.
I walked to the door, and without looking back, said “I’m going to return some jewelry.” And without another word, I left to hail a cab, fat hot tears on my face at what felt like the last betrayal of my life.
77
I have with me two gods; Persuasion and Compulsion- Themistocles
The Forest
Tadeusz drove without fear. He also drove without brakes, because the autumnal scenery blew by in a smear of browns and yellows as his ancient rust bucket of a car banged along a rutted track in a spine crushing series of skids, stops, and wild accelerations. I found him searching on my phone while in a cab to the Fort Lauderdale airport. My simple search of Guides: Bialowicza: English Speaking led to a phone call, a hurried negotiation while I purchased my ticket and, thirteen hours later, a hale greeting at the airport before he whisked me, jet lagged and bewildered towards the looming green of the forest.
“This I think is far enough, Ring” Tadeusz told me, pointing with emphasis at a double row of odd mounds on either side of the track. “That is the edge of the estate. No one will go here, so I will not go here, but if you must be a stupid hero American, then you will go alone and I will be here, drinking the delicious Nalewka my wife has given me for this trip.” He brandished the bottle of herbed liqueur and pointed to the growing gloom. “Not much light left for your walk. You must go.” I looked meaningfully into the backseat, where a well-cared for rifle lay under a blanket. Gleaning my intent, he shook his head. “I cannot let you have that. But this, this is okay.” He handed me a savage looking hunting knife, honed to a mirror edge. It looked brutal and functional, a mankiller. I took it and thanked him. Its weight comforted me.
The door creaked and closed with a bang, and I was surrounded by a forest of such depth and silence that I could not tell I had been caroming through it seconds earlier. No birds called, no wind. Nothing. Just the crunch of my boots over inert leaves as I walked to a paired row of hulking shapes, nearly covered with mosses and grime.
Cars. Two rows of cars, cast aside, forgotten, rusting into the soil. Like poplars lining a levy, they sat, immobile, their state of decay greater as I moved forward towards the location of the lodge, according to Tadeusz. Here a Syrena, tiny and globular, sitting next to a Polish Kredens, its entire side stove in from some mysterious disaster. Further along, I passed not two but three of the once feared Crows, their government plates ripped off by some unseen collector. The majestic remains of a Zil limousine lazed on an embankment, state flags that were once brilliantly colored now a faint, bloody pink. It was a parking lot made by something incredibly lethal, filled with the remains if the greedy or the stupid. I was choosing freely to walk towards this unknown killer, but my knife was in hand, and in the dying light of the primal, filtered sun, I stalked with supreme confidence. The Baron, whether he wished it or not, was about to have a houseguest.
A slight incline announced the manor proper. Thr
ee oaks large enough to hide a small home squatted imperiously before me. I lay against the nearest, bark as old as time rough against my face, and peered around the massive trunk to select my path.
There was no need for stealth. Only then did a bird call, a laughing, raucous jay, piercing the quiet in the growing dusk. The ruin had once been magnificent. Even looking at the bones of the home, it was easy to see what was lost. Logs tumbled in upon one another in a jackstraw of abandonment and the ravages of time. Jewel green mosses slowly pulled the remaining height of the structure toward the soft earth, with mushrooms quietly breaking the wood into soil, while spilled slate announced the former shapes of walls, and a wood pen, and perhaps a firepit.
Gone, and long ago, perhaps centuries. Another fallen house of lies, slowly slipping beneath the verdant waters of the forest, one wavelike season at a time. I walked forward to where the massive doors had once hung, now only collapsed hints of a stone arch left among the jumble of relics. Lies. What else did I expect? Blackness yawned to my left, tucked under the angular remnants of a roof joist made of waist thick beams, dissolving under the attentions of the weather. I stepped carefully over the fallen majesty of the ceilings that had held the aurochs horns aloft. The hole was lit by the last rays of the weakened fall sunshine, a last hurrah of joy to let my eyes see into the seductively open stairway. Carved from stone, each step angled slightly down and away, a curling invitation glistening with dew and uncertainty. I stepped forward once more as the sun spangled off the jeweled eye of a silver horse, spinning gently in the moist air pushing lightly from the unknown pit. The necklace hung just out of reach, to secure it would mean taking several steps into the dark. Clever girl, oh very clever indeed. I stood erect, backing away silently and the breeze from below carried such a wealth of scents. Mosses, time, mystery. And perfume. A perfume I have smelled before and will always remember, and not worn by any human. Stepping away, I thought I heard her laughter welling up from the depths, mocking me.
Box Set: The Fearless 1-3 Page 23